Tom London Movies

An unscrupulous rancher will do just about anything to cheat a prospective buyer in this two-reel Leo Maloney Western. The arid AP Ranch is up for sale and the owner, Dan Murdock (Tom London), attempts to coerce his neighbor, Harding, into pretending that valuable WB creek belongs to the AP. When the honest Harding refuses to go along with the deceit, Murdock pulls a gun on him. To the rescue comes a stranger, John Green (Maloney), who just happens to be the prospective buyer. In revenge, Murdock accuses his elderly neighbor of cattle rustling. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

As might be expected, director Victor Fleming, who always did well with outdoorsy material, deftly handles this adaptation of Zane Grey's novel. Glenn Kilbourne (Richard Dix) was gassed during the war. When he comes home to New York he discovers that his fiancée, Carley Burch (Lois Wilson), has not only fallen in with a jazzy, wealthy crowd -- she's one of their leaders. Kilbourne can't cope with this and he has a relapse. A doctor recommends that he go to Arizona to recuperate, but once he has been there for a while he falls in love with the place and becomes a rancher. Carley goes out to see him, but she's disgusted by the rough life and goes back to New York. After visiting a hospitalized friend of Kilbourne's, however, Carley realizes that she's a quitter and she returns to Arizona. It's not a moment too soon -- Kilbourne is about to marry Flo Hutter (Marjorie Daw), a rancher's daughter. Flo knows that Kilbourne still loves Carley, so she willingly gives him up and returns to Lee Stanton (Leonard Clapham), who has been patiently waiting for her. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Famed stunt flyer Al Wilson was handsome and personable enough to successfully star in a series of fast-moving silent actioners in the 1920s. In The Air Hawk, Wilson plays the titular character, a secret service agent posing as a "regular Joe" flyboy. It is Wilson's task to track down some platinum thieves who have murdered heroine Virginia Browne Faire's father. The film's highlight is a fistfight between Wilson and the chief villain, staged on the wing of a plane in flight. As brave as Al Wilson obviously was in Air Hawk, mention should also be made of the equally fearless cinematographer Bert Longenecker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Frank Lloyd, who directed The Sea Beast, tried to create another epic with this Rex Beach tale of the 1897 gold rush. The story, however, isn't all that interesting, and there are too many important characters that muddy the plot. Pierce Phillips (a miscast Ben Lyon) loses his stake in a shell game and winds up hiring himself out to carry goods for the McCaskeys to the next camp. He meets and joins up with Tom (Claude Gillingwater) and Jerry (Charles Crockett), two old prospectors, and also meets the beautiful Countess Courteau (Anna Q. Nilsson). Phillips helps her take her belongings through the rapids, but they are estranged when she reveals that she is already married. Phillips gets work as a gold weigher in a dancehall, where Laura (Dorothy Sebastian) tries to vamp him. When he turns her down, she teams up with McCaskey (Fred Kohler). They try to frame Phillips for a robbery. The Count (Philo McCullough) has gone to inform the police, but he is killed en route. Phillips is blamed for this too, but it's finally revealed that one of McCaskey's clan did the job. After all these confusing events, Phillips and the Countess find happiness. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Produced by George Blaisdell for W. Ray Johnston's low-budget Rayart Productions (the forerunner of Monogram Pictures, this unusual silent western actually stars a horse, the Grey Devil of the title, played by Starlight. This magnificent steed was screen cowboy Jack Perrin's mount, and it is Perrin who appears as the nominal star of the picture. Falsely accused of cattle rustlings, Perrin goes about to apprehend the real killer. He is befriended by a wild stallion along the way, and it is Grey Devil who rescues him in the nick of time from the villain (Tom London). Perrin was actually one of the better cowboy actors of the period, although he could be overly coy in what were meant to be humorous episodes. He gets no help from veteran "comic" Milburn Morante in this film, however, which thoroughly belongs to Starlight. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This silent gangster film plays like a B-Western and was actually made by specialists of that genre. There is even a thrilling transfer stunt where young Francis X. Bushman, Jr. (or his stunt double) switches from speeding motorcycle to runaway automobile much like a Western hero would from horse to carriage. Bushman plays a small-town cub reporter who comes to the assistance of a couple of revenue agents (Jack Perrin and Hal Walters) tracking a gang of hi-jackers. Half-way through, unfortunately, the story moves indoors to a swank hotel and the film begins to drag a bit, its makers obviously out of their natural element. Western villains Ethan Laidlaw and Tom London are the leaders of the gang, while Mildred Harris, the first Mrs. Charles Chaplin, does the ingenue bit as the sister of one of the agents. The son of the matinee-idol, Francis X. Bushman, Jr. later worked under his real name, Ralph Bushman. The penultimate entry in a series of eight crime melodramas, Dangerous Traffic was produced independently by Otto K. Streyer for release by poverty row company Goodwill. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Having scored big-time box office with his first Biblical epic, The Ten Commandments (1923), Cecil B. DeMille hoped to top this success with his 1927 The King of Kings. Inasmuch as he was now dealing with the life of Christ, DeMille had to be careful to serve up equal amounts of showmanship and reverence. The first creative challenge: how to "introduce" Christ in a tasteful manner? The answer: as a blind child is cured through Jesus' intervention, DeMille cuts to the child's point-of-view, slowly fading in on the kindly countenance of H.B. Warner as the Son of Man. Still, DeMille remained DeMille, especially in his handling of the character of Mary Magdalene (Jacqueline Logan). No longer a tattered streetwalker, Mary Magdalene is now a glamorous courtesan, replete with legions of gorgeous slave girls (one of whom is "bubble dancer" Sally Rand) and dressed in revealing Hollywood-style gowns. In fact, the film opens on this character, as she ruminates over the defection of her favorite customer, Judas Iscariot (Joseph Schildkraut), who is spending far too much time with Jesus of Nazareth. Upon visiting Jesus herself, she immediately repents, casting off all her prior sins. Once again, the efficacy of the Cecil B. DeMille formula is proven: redemption has no dramatic value unless the film shows viewers why the sinner needs to be redeemed. Once he's gotten his box-office considerations out of the way, DeMille adheres faithfully to the particulars of Jesus' life, betrayal, trial, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. (Again, however, the director improves a bit upon his source material: the storm that follows the Crucifixion is of the same spectacular dimensions as the parting of the Red Sea in Ten Commandments, while the Resurrection is filmed in vibrant Technicolor). To back up the authenticity of his images, DeMille -- with an assist from scenarist Jeannie Macpherson -- utilizes Scriptural quotes in his subtitles. And to avoid any untoward publicity while filming, DeMille required all of his actors to sign legal documents preventing them from indulging in any sort of "sinful" activity; this meant that poor old H.B. Warner had to steer clear of alcoholic beverages for nearly a year, though he more than made up for lost time after his contract ran out. Prepared to mercilessly lambaste The King of Kings, DeMille's critics were disarmed by his reverent, tasteful approach to the subject. Years after the film's release, a specially prepared 60-minute version of the 18-reel King of Kings was making the rounds of religious groups, church basements, and Easter-weekend telecasts. The film was remade in 1961 by producer Samuel Bronston and director Nicholas Ray, with Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joan Forsythe (Molly Malone) arrives in the town of Cache D'Orr, near the Canadian border, to find and claim an inheritance that was left by her late father. Furthermore, in order to find the clue to the fortune in gold, in a hidden mine, she must make contact with a Native American, Black Eagle (Jay J. Bryan). Once in Cache D'Orr, she crosses paths with Wynne Kendall (Maurice B. "Lefty" Flynn), an upper-class ne'er-do-well trying to make good in the eyes of his wealthy uncle, who is newly arrived in the wilderness, his identity a secret, trying to find out why the furs received at the trading post owned by his uncle's company have been dropping for the past couple of years. This puts him on a collision course with Ewart Garth (Joe Bonomo), the brutal and corrupt manager of the trading post. But he and Joan end up with parallel and conflicting interests, as he has posted a bounty for the head of White Fury, the magnificent stallion that leads a herd of wild horses (and recently ran off with Garth's prize brood mare); and White Fury also carries the clue to the location of Joan's legacy. Can the righteous and plucky but genteel Joan and the upright Wynne overcome the brutal Garth, even with the help of Black Eagle, and save the stallion and the herd? Originally released as a serial, The Golden Stallion had enough characters and good enough acting to hold audiences' interest for ten episodes. It was co-authored by future director/producer William A. Berke, whose career lasted another 30 years, and was among the better late silent serial produced by renowned Poverty Row mogul Nat Levine. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

A huge cast supported pudgy western star Leo Maloney in The Apache Raider, a typically threadbare silent oater in which a cattle thief (Tom London is backed by a group of corrupt politicians. Maloney is on to the villain, however, and takes it upon himself to return the cattle. Soon he is accused of rustling himself and about to be lynched. The townspeople discover their error in time, and the hero is cleared of all wrong-doing. Third-billed Don Coleman signed a contract with Maloney, who starred the handsome former rodeo-rider in four none-too-successful westerns. Maloney, himself a prolific silent screen auteur, never made the top rung of the cowboy ladder either, succumbing instead to alcoholism, dead at the age of 41. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Nearing the end of his starring days, Universal cowboy Ted Wells played Bob Shaw, the sheriff of Rimrock, in this quickly-made silent Western. Shaw and his deputies raid a gambling joint suspected of serving bootleg liquor, but owner Joe Kern (Tom London) manages to hide the contraband. Later, a truckload of hootch is prevented from entering Rimrock, its destination Kern's gambling establishment. John Bell (William Malan), the father of Bob's fiancée (Kathryn McGuire), shoots Joe Kern in self-defence and is chased out of town by the saloon-keeper's henchman (Buck Moulton). Before he dies, Kern exonerates Bell of any wrongdoing, and peace is soon restored to Rimrock. A pleasant enough personality, Ted Wells faced unemployment when Universal closed its Western units in anticipation of sound. No actor in any real sense of the word, Wells signed for a series of very late silent Westerns produced by Robert J. Horner who billed him "Pawnee Bill, Jr." The "Pawnee Bill" Westerns played in rural areas only, and Wells spent the remainder of his career in bit parts and doubling for William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Universal's infamously obstreperous equine star, Rex the Wonder Horse, earned top-billing over leading man Jack Perrin in this, one of the studio's final silent Westerns. Rex plays the "World's Greatest Trained Horse" and is the star attraction of the Carney Carnival and Road Show. The show's new proprietor, crooked sportsman Martin Trask (Tom London), mistakenly assumes that he has full ownership of not only the horse but also his rider, lovely equestrienne Mademoiselle Estrella (Helen Foster). Rex and Estrella -- who is really an American girl named Margie -- seek shelter with young cowboy Jack Merritt (Perrin). In retaliation, Trask cancels Merritt's mortgage and blackmails Margie to leave with him. The evil showman then attempts to force himself on the girl, but she is rescued in the nick of time by Jack, Rex and Jack's horse Starlight. The Harvest of Hate was helmed by Universal's longtime head of serial and Western production, Henry MacRae. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

William Wyler was still primarily a western specialist when he was assigned to direct Hell's Heroes. Based on Peter B. Kyne's Three Godfathers (which was filmed officially and unofficially several times), the story deals with three frontier bandits (Charles Bickford, Raymond Hatton, and Fred Kohler Sr.) who come across a pregnant woman in the desert. The woman dies in childbirth, but not before the three fugitives have promised the unfortunate mother to locate the baby's father. Two of the three criminals are killed before they are able to keep their promise, but the surviving bandit (Bickford) restores the baby to its father. Having accomplished the only good deed in his life, the bandit dies from drinking poisoned water. Filmed in the Mojave Desert and the Panamint Valley, Hell's Heroes represented William Wyler's first "outdoors" talking picture; even after attaining the front ranks of his profession, he would return to the western genre with such "A" productions as The Westerner (41) and The Big Country (58). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide